


Dead Dogs Two

by BiastulaAtornal



Category: The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
Genre: Anachronisms, Animal Abuse, Blood and Gore, Bodily Fluids, Death, Delusions, Dreams, Flashbacks, Gen, Kangaroo Court, Mental Instability, Post-Story, Songfic, Stream of Consciousness, Violence, animal testing, dada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 19:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19279846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiastulaAtornal/pseuds/BiastulaAtornal
Summary: 'it's a bad world for animals.'a songfic about the Plague Dogs.





	1. Mire and Loam

**Author's Note:**

> note that this is a post-story tale...if new, be aware of spoilers.
> 
> the song is ‘Dead Dogs Two’ by cLOUDDEAD.

they kill us for their sport...

 

**_From the height of the highway onramp we saw_ **

 

**_Two dogs, a-dead in a field_ **

  
  


Across a white road, through a river of static, amidst a patch of rhododendrons. Petals scatter on the breeze, threading soft through leafy trees. A dog lies, shaggy and silent. The garden seems made for him. Another dog, patched black and white, fossicks and furricks about him. He’s shot through with energy, foraging for no real purpose but to burn out the power that has lain, so long, dormant within him.

 

No need to run anymore.

 

No hurtful man.

  
  


**_Glowing on the Oakland Coliseum green seats wasteland_ **

 

**_Dogs, dogs we thought were dead_ **

 

At this point in time they had so much...well, time. The days of wasting away were well behind them. Warmth, shelter, food and drink, all just an over-the-shoulder scent now, and not a real concern.

 

“The garden was in my ear all along, Rowf. All we had to do was lie down. Jolly good deal, being dead, don’t you think?”

 

The bigger mutt flicks an ear.

  
  


**_They rose up, rose up when whistled at_ **

  
  


The whitecoats were always at the edge of his vision, flicking on and off like mouse tails. They appeared as soldiers, fighting for the good of their country; as the farmers, laying out the meat trail with every yow in the fells; as the sorry public, hanging on the press’ next false word. Beyond the high fells, tors and wolds lay great sheets of glass, and behind them walked the whitecoats.

 

Shadows, docked with a smell brash and bold and wild. Dancing in the air and on the ground. Barking at the scent of man. Snitter raised his head and breathed them in.

 

“I’d have found this earlier, if my head weren’t so...so pi--so picked--”

 

Yawning, Rowf turns turtle in the paling light. He snaps at a fly that gets a touch too cocky.

 

“Pick...pock-marked as hare-holes in March, Rowf. The forms were in there, though, and I just had to dig the rhododendrons out again. This is a tidy spot! We can lay here, certainly.”

 

 

**_Their ribcage inflating, like men on the beach being photographed_ **

  
  


Rowf had taken longer to acclimatise. A lifetime of death will do that to a dog.  _ His _ brain wasn’t the cloven, chicken-wire mess, and yet...waking up on a bed of earth or even a woven basket, instead of a tidy glass table? And a dream of the cold dark, of bubbles and pressure, being...just that? A dream?

 

Easy enough to accept his situation prior. Just suffer for the whitecoats, scream for them, drown for them and for the good of the world. If he ripped the fur from his body, strand by strand, and then the skin strip by strip, if oil instead of blood splashed across his gums and tongue as he looked upon a latticework of pistons, beams, gears...that would have meshed with him well. But, no. He was of the earth. Of the preliminary shell. And even if Man tried, he couldn’t hide the fact that Rowf breathed, bled and barked. Old 732.

 

Flatface, bowing and brash as ever, dog for a curious crowd. Brot on his river of dreams, the last of which he wouldn’t wake up from. Lodo drowning in the sea of her own smoke, melded, firm, by the whitecoats into the mist they poured into Snitter’s own head. 

 

They’d spared him in the black soot room, trembling against Rowf and the brittle bones of guinea pigs put to good use. They’d spared him from Ephraim, who’d come to give Life to Death, and condemn Snitter for his knowledge, and shoot the gun that had followed him all along. They’d spared him in the ocean, floundering with Rowf in the cradle of air and cold toward an island as intermittent in their vision as his own capacity for rational thought.

 

Snitter dug down through the autumn thatch. Turning over tresses of wavy grass, he tore free the thickest roots and ate them. A grounding texture. For a moment he just stared, caught by the sight of his own muddied paw.

 

Feeling satiated felt so...uncomfortable.

 

“See, I knew all along, Rowf!”

  
  


**_A-guard dogs, guard dogs, for what, for what?_ **

 

**_Against overzealous, penniless athletics fanatics_ **

  
  


Clusker took the easy way out. Can’t worry so much if your brain’s clumped and torn as sheep’s wool on chicken wire. Jimjam had at least wanted to die like a dog. That would be: alone, apparently, and loved. And Zigger just kept on running.

 

While Rowf and Snitter had survived. They’d outfoxed Man and his sorry lot. Many a yow and bird had split blood on their ever-hungry fangs. Lurid pools of piss stained the hills; every now and then the grasses waved aside over poo-a-plenty. And to what end?

 

The whitecoats had come from every grass garden he could accomplish. They would come to steal his fragmentary brass ring. A bad enough world for animals to get a grip, on the star’s great spinning wheel.

 

As a pup, he’d listened as his dam told him of the star dog. Of how. No, actually. No how, but what and where. Of this world being created for animals. And of how the star dog had lost faith in his project.

 

He’d wondered why such a being would create. Would drip-feed disorder and fear into the minds of his creations. Would sow the sources of those fears across the world in such quantity. 

 

But then he’d realised that man was behind this. And, as a grown dog, he was behind man. Having life and death in his head had been a jolly endeavour: however, now he could lie down and let only air and mincemeat thoughts flow through.

 

And when his head ached, he never felt quite as scared anymore.

  
  


**_Getting into games through a hole in the fence_ **

 

**_For the owner of the blue-tarp tent_ **

  
  


“Oh,” Snitter whined, “there was no need, Don, Wag. We only wanted to help--oh! Oh, my head!” Meanwhile, over the course of Levers Water came the current of canines, dutiful and proud. Bounding over the hills to send yows hither-thither for the good of mankind, or so they thought. Snitter wasn’t the smart one, should have known the rules weren’t that easy. But what dog doesn’t seek a man?

 

Rowf bit back a growl. “What?”

 

They were only helping...but, of course, the rules wouldn’t stop changing. Don’t chase those sheep. Chase them, but only in a certain manner. No need to run. Run in this direction alone. No teeth, no claws. Show teeth, show claws, show restraint? Just what was the human intention?

 

Yes, Rowf did want to be a good dog. And maybe, through suffering, and oh-so-much thinking, he’d be able to learn how. But perhaps he couldn’t.

 

Admittedly, hadn’t Snitter saved them before? When an attempt at hunting away from the tod had only went dugs-up, leaving them staring down the barrel they’d fled from so often, and instead their foes had been the ones to flee? Had they seen what Snitter had, when he’d looked that man in the eye through the haze of fate?

 

“No, Jed, no. ‘Ere, Jed.” 

 

And, meanwhile again, over we go, off to breathe in the icy spice of Brim Fell. Gytrash looming yonder way, spectre hiding from the day. Figure standing on the brink, carrier of a typhoon’s stink. A limb raw you’d better gnaw and not leave to grow sore as left spoor in sprinkled hoar. 

 

Whether he sung to the moon, o dug-a-moon, o grant thy faithful plague dog’s boon, or whether he stood at the feet of Death to carry His message. Whatever whether, Snitter pulled through. He really was a smart one.

 

“No, no, old Rowf.” Snitter’s teeth cracked through into view. “He called me  _ knabe. _ Why wouldn’t I know what that means? He was playing a trick. I’m grounded as ever down here, you know.”

 

There  _ was _ empirical evidence to the contrary. But Snitter wouldn’t see that.

 

“You’re injured.”

 

“We’re all injured, Rowf!”

 

“Snitter.”

 

Rowf nosed along the stitchwork in the smaller dog’s skull. Snitter felt silent. Brushing through the clouds, he wondered whether he’d felt like this before.

 

The little eight-one five was given too much.

 

He’d seen that man, that affectionate figure at the end of the tightened tunnel. He’d climbed up to him, licked his face. And--

 

As appreciative as he was of the tod’s effort to assist, he’d never really been able to leave the confines of his own head. Deed ‘n’ doon by ‘alf, ah warr’nd.

 

There was simply too much unfixed.

 

“This will help,” snapped Rowf. “This is your idea. Always full of thoughts, aren’t you? Well, here are some of mine. There was a dog, once, a black-and-white mite of a dog, and he was brought into a bad world. A world of ice and pain and flies. And that dog, he kept on thinking, and he thought about open gates and black milk, and he thought another dog right out of the cage with him. And that old tod, he knew about surviving, but he didn’t know how to live. Who did, Snitter? Who did?”

 

A black-and-white mite of a dog’s eyes rolled from where he lay. The vaguely flagging scents of tree bark and dead leaves rippled through his nostrils.

 

“Focus on me, Snitter. Listen. You got us to the island, so there’s no need for that talk. Don’t talk rot, Snitter. You gave me hope. Now be quiet. We’ve had enough excitement.”

  
  


**_Pitched by a creek beneath the onramp_ **

  
  


“Th’ Dark’ll be oon yer arse, swift as.”

 

The tod was melting away down the fell. Snitter ran after him, as fast as he could manage.

 

“Tod! Please! We have to--”

 

“They’ll ‘ave ye rite quick. Aye. Treet kind as som’ yow left o’er yonda fell. Beacon fer all blouidy man, ye are. Sad ol’ canny derg ‘n’ ‘is loony pup.”

 

“I’m sorry, tod. We’re trying to learn to be wild--”

 

“Right ye are. Sorriest lot ah saw. Deed dergs walkin’ the lot o’ yez.”

 

“Ah-hh, Ru-Rowf!” Would he be better off like Licker? Harnessed, restrained with his life out of his paws?

 

He’d realised that the world outside of those pens was just as bad, if not worse. Cold, wet and windy. And with far too many smells. The easiest animals to catch have no meat on their bones, mostly due to them not taking the trouble to exist for his benefit...and he couldn’t coax them out himself, used as he was to starving.

  
  


**_In the privacy of the last three_ **

 

**_Skin-and-bony trees_ **

 

**_Devoid of leaves_ **

 

**_And us undeceased_ **

  
  


“‘Reet mazer wi’ yows,’ eh, Snitter?”

 

“Don’t talk like that, Rowf,” the smooth fox terrier said, worming his way under his friend’s tangly flank. The absence of fear-smell and rot was still a treasure. “We can be good dogs again.”

 

Doon keep yer reet, yer get noo meat. There were no bitches here, ready for chase, what was this? He’d only been chasing the rot, hadn’t he? The looming colossus that posed as his falconer? Spurring him on to catch the wind of song?

 

More than ever he was aware of the nippy little winds. Just as the dogs were thinking too much, here they were, ready to bring them back to the ground by force. How  _ did _ they know to do that? Oh, humanity! Always one skip ahead.

 

(‘Taboo, tabye, ta-bollocky-ay.’ So sayeth old Kiff. Rest in pieces. They’ll have you yet. Here’s our song in honour of you oh oops that wasn’t the right course of action, the whitecoats can’t be having that kind of layer to their lab)

 

What was difficult was fighting the urge to chase the tail of peripheral vision and await the return of the water and of death. Along the maze, roondaboot. The mongrel pictured the cold pressure at the edge of his comprehension, lurking like a starved child outside a sweet-shop with just as much hunger and alerting, fogging breath.

 

The terrier squirming around, over and under him was another story altogether. Snitter knew that death had ensnared him long ago; he instead compelled the cold force as best he could to wait. Since misery surrounded him so often, having an auxiliary vessel outside his head to offload those thoughts seemed only sensical. No point them harrying his half-and-half brain. They’d be on him like flies on faecal matter.

 

“A tidy spot, Snitter.” Rowf closed his eyes. He could feel that old force flowing behind his eyes, and in whatever form--water, power, blood--he’d be ready. “This is more like the Isle of Man than of Dog. I was right. Fancy that.” He exhaled. “I don’t feel this’ll last for long. I’m ready enough to be happy. To rest. But, more than that, I’m prepared to fight.”

  
  


**_But with our new CDs, zipping on dead east_ **

 

**_Oakland_ **

  
  


“Rowf, isn’t this a wonderful island? Not all such a bad job. They’re not hunting us now, are they, Rowf?” 

 

“I’ll gut you, you briny cur. Just be quiet, will you?” The mongrel just wanted to sleep.

 

“Was there ever a dog named Fly?”

 

“Why would there be?” Wouldn’t be surprising, from a human.

 

Mildly ironic that the preserver takes the form of the destroyer.

 

Hounded plague dogs, soon to fall.

 

Very soon, or not at all.

 

“Such a lovely smell! Rowf?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doggerel o’ doggedly dogging doggos


	2. Varzea

each dog in their house, each wolf in their house

  


**_It’s hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead_ **

 

**_Under a sky so blue_ **

  


All our sons and daughters, come to let you know.

 

“Dr. Stephen Powell stands trial today for his crimes as a victim of rational thought. Stevey, old boy, how d’you plead? None a’ that screamin’, now!”

 

Standing before a jury of bloated rats, of hooded cats, of rabbits and guinea pigs and monkeys choking in their own skin, the wretched A.R.S.E. throwaway stayed silent. He was used to being hated and yet never felt the pain any less.

 

Staring into the furthest reaches of the room, he couldn’t find the source of that voice. The lilts, the inflections warped and changed, a pulsing vessel in the dull chamber. You’d think that after all these years of goading, all these insults and reprimands and demands, he’d distinguish one frowning face from another, wouldn’t you? For this was a bottomless barrel of piss. And to God there was no zero.

 

“This ‘ere’s for the good ‘a the people, y’see. Those there are words y’know all too well. So no need t’ talk ever again, there.”

 

_I have the right to remain silent. I am under no obligation to testify--_

 

“Your first mistake was taking this t’ be a court o’ law.”

  


**_You have to stop the blood to your head_ **

 

**_To fit the breath in front of you_ **

  


Too many rules. Keep off the grass. No admittance or dogs smoking ice creams. All in the name of the future.

 

“Guilty.”

 

They were laughing again. When was the last time he’d heard a laugh to warm his heart?

 

...they were still going. Only now were they reading off the charges. Why now? Why were they still proceeding? Of course they were still proceeding.

 

Who had accused him? He was doing this for the benefit of society. A lie that was becoming harder and harder to justify. Stuck in the muzzy fug of second-guessing. Skin. His skin didn’t feel so tight.

 

“I did this for you, chief,” whined the accused under his breath. Had some greenhorn upstart come sniffing around for his position? Admittedly, writing God knows how many synonyms to describe how an animal can bleed and/or scream while observing said animal bleeding and/or screaming was not the most taxing or even tricky of jobs. But every ‘good’ from Boycott seemed to matter to Powell, each one like a drop of nectar trickling down his thirsting throat...would _this_ ringing bell have actual food this time? Were they not the Pavlovian ministry of this day and age? But the bells had indeed tolled alone for too long.

 

 _Plip_ and _plop_ went the eyeballs of a rabbit onto the courtroom floor.

 

 _Heightened fertility and sex drive has been noted in the lapine sample batch,_ went Powell’s brain as he dove by instinct into his pockets for a pen. _However the dosage in regards to human anatomy may bring unwarranted side-effects. Known comorbidities include alopecia, mania and death. The effectiveness of the use of_ Oryctolagus cuniculus _in the study of various reproductive hormones has so far not been conclusively proven: have yet to achieve desired result of 80% success rate. This will merit further testing._ _Shall preserve remaining specimens for now, in face of recent shipment delay...Powell, Boycott et. al. ‘Blah, blah, blah, rhubarb, peas and carrots.’ Oh, Lord. Seems like I’m losing my touch. Er...add ‘enucleation’ to the list. Good ol’ coney._

 

A cat who surely couldn’t see or hear was scratching away in the jury box. Their clinical tongue licked at a dewclaw; said dewclaw hooked under paper.

 

On sang a dove. “For the flea, a kaftan~”

 

“Such a sad old lad.” Another voice.

 

“No love for the lady, for the old ball-and-chain--”

 

That was a rabbit now, oh, bun, thy will be done, “That’ll be another complaint lodged with the people--”

 

“Think a bit of the plague’s gotten into _him._ ”

 

“10% of profits made by breakthroughs in regards to avian subjects designated

 

(this)

 

are to be donated to help fund the continued efforts of the R. S. P. C. A. to improve the lives of God’s animals everywhere.”

 

From A. R. S. E. to R. S. P. C. A. Indeed. Love for all our Lord’s creatures great and small...

 

“Oh,” growled Dr. Boycott, “do I have a great deal to say.”

  


**_It’s hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead_ **

 

**_Under a sky so blue_ **

 

The benefits toward humanity revealed by monthly sensory deprivation upon rhesus monkeys were undeniable. Advances in psychology could not be ignored. Cancer quailed in the face of the guinea pig. Couldn’t they see?

 

A fly buzzed in through a sudden window. This was a farce. What an absolute sham.

 

“I didn’t get the summons,” Powell began, but only began. His tongue was a dull weight in his mouth. Unwelcome. He turned to the presence who had only now appeared. “And who are _you?_ ”

 

“You don’t remember?” The room felt so muzzy. “I’ve been with you your whole life, dear chap.”

 

Flies. _Flies._

 

“No--”

 

“Yes,” said Death, and turned to the judging jury. Ears pricked and whiskers twitched. Staring eyeballs rolled from a dog’s droll visage--a gaggle of dilated pupils and bloodshot sclerae, on off-white organs strung through with too-long optical nerves. Indeed, they reached beyond the animal’s flesh and wrapped a furry neck and shoulders with a necklace.

 

An albino rat shuddered in the haze, eyes boggling, jaw bruxing-- _two screamed_ \--looking just about ready to collapse from exhaustion-- _that doesn’t help us, really_ \--

 

Every spark on a living system. He was the electorate, prosecution, lawyer, defense. ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ said cunning old Fury.

 

“There are signs, here,” he stated, “of lachrymation. And what does that tell us? That Mr. Powell lacks the credibility not only for scientific experimentation but also for rational thought. His presence here serves only as unnecessary proof. I’d advise you all to be off from him as soon as possible. Right piece of work.”

 

“In the face of overwhelming evidence and myriad (enough) testimonies from our witness, you are hereby charged with--”

 

“Rowf-rowf!”

  


**_You have to stop the blood to your head_ **

 

**_To fit the breath in front of you_ **

  


“O’ course. We shall admit to you all one hour t’ adjourn and t’ fully absorb th’ repr’hens’ble deeds a’ dear Powell. A latrine fo’ Mistress Porcellus? O’ course.”

 

One whole table, long enough to support a fifteen-strong banquet, laid with labours of love, a biological bounty. So many mammalian treasures. Petri dishes hosting their own little universes. Fur clippings stored in Ziploc bags (“We can’t afford to be fancy, Moss.”) piled alongside ash and bone scrapings from the furnace floor stored in Ziploc bags. Cadavers, whole and intact, discarded on account of one undesirable gene. Skin grafts and dry flesh. A biohazard bin, evidently dragged haphazardly from the not-so-secure temporary storage facilities of A.R.S.E. as the occasional blade of grass and clod of dirt clung to the bottom. God knows what mess lay clumped inside.

 

There were...growths; his mind couldn’t coalesce them into sensical form. They were trudging through the room, so intact, so liminal. One promptly took a shit on the table.

 

“Your slate, sir.” A gaudy mongrel of a dog turned their back, and there was the landscape for note-taking in plain. “Bound for the biohazard, I was, anyway. But you’ll get some use out of me, I trust?” Laced around their neck was a tracery of veins, this firm hound immured in plain, gleaming tags reading ‘XXX’.

 

Powell began mumbling, scouring his pockets again for a pen. Like last time, he was unsuccessful, and felt one slip into his searching hands from behind. He didn’t care enough to see who (or what) but, with nary a word of thanks, went pell-mell at his slate with every helpful word he could recall from the defense. They were noted down as well as any biro’s words were on animal pelt.

 

Sweat marred his forehead. “Oh, God.” _Death of specimen preceded by--what?_ He realised only too late that he’d written that down too. _Many instances of muscular convulsions, visual impairment, visible stress…_ Never felt so warm. _Audible screams_. That’s a failsafe indeed.

 

“Listen, I…” He was choking on his own words. “I--I just…”

 

“You left me here to die.”

  


**_We secretly long to be some part of a car crash_ **

 

**_Long to see your arm stripped to the tendons_ **

 

**_The nudity of swelling, exposed veins_ **

 

**_Webbing the back of your hand_ **

  


He awoke to the feeling of being touched softly, and his eyelids fluttered.

 

“Oh, sorry, I’ll be with you in just a moment, dear.” Whether a dogged fragment of his endless dream or an intrusion from the waking nightmare, he was not sure. But the necessity faded, faded into the eternal haze that grew serrated claws and jagged teeth and lunged for him. Eager to quell his struggles and to swallow him down again.

 

He wouldn’t need to explain what had happened. He wouldn’t get the chance to, anyway. Quite commonplace, that. Quaint of an acquaintance. Dear Amédée, we’ll soon see the back of you! Sometimes speech isn’t what we need, but the steadfast sturdy storge of life!

 

The force upon him was immediate and needy and so, so lovely. Reality. Even grounds. That was all he wanted.

 

Gentle footsteps, away and away, so reassuring. He was here.

 

A kitten scampers away from the warmth of their kin. Ready to meet their untimely end in an owl or kite’s talons, a cool and glassy stretch of river, the whirring innards of a sawmill or dark of a fox’s earth. And no regular common-or-garden kitten knows that. So they live regardless.

 

Feeling entrenched in a great, black, marsh, a truly lonely man lay supine. Crickets and cicadas chirp. Off slides a pond skater. One of the planet’s untouched old soggy blemishes, and a testament of nature’s beauty: cold, wet and howling. The moon shines over, casting her watchful eye on land and on lake. But, of course, we can’t have that for long, and soon enough the real light of the scene shines through. Still glowing, the butt of a cigarette fizzles down, down by the second. Three-to-five pages, see, of a newspaper, long forgotten and left to the wet and to the wind! And, lo, the rain shatters like a window around a figure, crouching on a ledge above the oily waters, contraption in hand! What will he have to say?

 

“Er, pages? Oh, there’s a thought.” He wanted to be sure, see, that he was really here. A lifetime spent with animals doesn’t always give one the best grip on their own behaviours. Our Stevey did his part as best he could, nodding so much his head might fall off, prancing through the halls, eager as he was to mark down his observations. In about thirty years, there’d be so much to derive from all this! Sometimes he _may_ have felt a little underappreciated, though...

 

Blinking, he kept his gaze somewhere above, ‘focused’ on an interesting crack in the ceiling. He didn’t want to think about going outside.

 

But since when did he get what he wanted?

 

Powell moaned, quiet and reluctant, and waited for Boycott’s final orders.

  


**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

**_Blood breathing by the side of the highway…_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POWELL is DOWN with the sickness.
> 
> kangaroo court. Read: an excuse for me not knowing how courts work. Dream sequence. That’ll be my excuse.


	3. Krumholtz

_c’est animal es tres m_ _échant…_

 

**_I long to be dead_ **

 

**_Center of a curious crowd_ **

 

No steam was spiraling through the homely air. The cup felt warm against his palm. Cinders and ash were piled in a fireplace long exhausted of warmth and life.

 

The room was quiet, frustratingly slow, and no-one seemed inclined to change that yet. An undercurrent of challenge swept through the air, dark and thick and eager.

 

“No need to apologise, Driver.”

 

**_To be touched_ **

 

**_Sticky like nearly-dried paint_ **

 

Who was the dog, really, and who was the wolf?

 

From the roots of wood and wire and rot, he blossomed. Transdimensional fast mapping. Once he had his target, better the world be sorry. (Thou, nature, art my goddess.) Don’t ask him to source his philosophy. He’d never be able to tell you.

 

Oh, Ephraim. Out to lure in those dear old darling doggies with a steady hand. How d’you think that’d’ve gone? Even if one of them hadn’t shot you through the skull--still don’t know how the hell _that_ went down, story-and-a-half right there to fall back on--what would you come back to? Hail, Ephraim! One deceptive old grotter ready to kill them with kindness! Were we not put on this Earth for dominion?

 

**_Their soft science stare_ **

 

**_Nursing your face_ **

 

He was a dead man walking. But he wore his body with a smile, and his heart on his sleeve, for we are all in the gutter and yet some of us shoot for the moon, if only to miss and to be set adrift among the stars.

 

This man had served, and then he’d died in an avalanche of flame. Serves you right for being kind, and expecting us not to be suspicious. Got quite a scare with your pet, there, didn’t you? And now you’ve got him back, and he still loves you...and there’s also another dog, with him...now...wait. What was the problem again? Ah, yes. Selflessness. The queer concept of such. There’s a feeling that merits study, you scientist shits.

 

Driver (renowned journalist; had once gone on record as saying he could make the District, picture of a stiff upper lip, cry for an ant) had undergone quite the funny few weeks.

 

**_Anticipating the slightest pinch_ **

 

**_Or flinch_ **

 

**_Of pain_ **

 

Two dogs were drowsing in the corner of the room. The hirsute form of the larger eclipsed and swallowed the smaller. An old-fashioned basket-esque bed enclosed them, laid over with a blanket.

 

Like a test.

 

You may be able to paint over the scars, but the damage dwells deeper than skin.

 

Almost involuntarily, Driver’s mind leaped upon the fading figure of that man...what was his name? Westcote...no, Westcott? That old hothead. He’d braved those wintry fells, o’er yonder crag and gully far, to make the Plague Dogs’ next meal that of bullets. The saviour of car boots everywhere: none would know the stink of slobber ever again. And despite his hunter’s skill...he’d only thrown them his own body to snack on.

 

Driver blinked, amazed. _Ista quidem vis est!_ This little get-together had brought out so much. And he’d seen even more in Westcott’s eyes! Hadn’t even set out in search of fame and fortune, the damn fool! Revenge? Justice? Eh, those both meant the same, both stupid, but where were that man’s senses? Murder would weigh on your conscience. Even that of an animal. (That’s what he’d say, of course.)

 

Getting so hung up on dogs stealing your groceries? Just buy more groceries?

 

Holding a grudge against a fucking bastard _beast._

 

Never stooped any lower. Maybe, when you’re so tormented by anger and guilt that the only arms reaching out for you are laced with froth and seaweed, then they'll say that your big noise voice was at the very least golden, yammering on over their sad excuses for dinner and through the radio’s scratchy siren scream.

 

Whatever sounds most resonant from the self-toyed heartstrings, whatever to blubber to the choir.

 

Down the pub he’d even overheard some words of sympathy for the dogs and critique of the papers, and couldn’t bring himself to protest. The truth can be denied, as lies are often reassuring, but Driver would kowtow to whatever felt right in the moment. And if they wanted a sob story, then maybe that’s what they would get. No more beasts with bubonic plague, just a duo of darling doggies against those heartless bastards in helicopters! Now you can be mad at those who act for the Good of the People. Whether they be in white coats or camo.

 

**_Everyone blank, in accident awe_ **

 

**_As the car crash_ **

 

Screaming faces in a blur, heartbeat dulling to a purr. Footsteps blazon yielding sand. One dog licks a proffered hand; the other dulls the urge to roam. Now, the planet they call home...the one on which they split and ran? A lost dog, from his vanished man?

 

Soon a snicker in the air, showing portent in the night. Man is radiant up there, in a body pale and slight.

 

Can he--

 

**_Fibre-glass_ **

 

**_Dust_ **

 

 _Mental note, melatonin._ His gaze slid across the room once more. _And maybe some dog treats._

 

**_Straight-up settles on your raw muscle tissue_ **

 

Always felt like he were locked in a chicken coop. Just scratching for corn. No need for jewels. Feed yourself to feed the world.

 

 _I’ll tell you all you need to know:_ la cocaína no es buena para su salud. _Couldn’t find your own feet without my helpful hand, eh? Another article, another cheer._ “I heard about your si--”

 

To his amazement, Wood gave a different kind of smile. “Oh, Annie Mossity. Let’s not talk about her.”

 

 _So you_ can _let me read you. Right. More of that, if you please._

 

Or you could just kill the fucker right now. Can’t give you that stare without eyes, can they? We’ll go on a walk, alright, a nice long walk, somewhere nice and cold and far away where we’ll never find our way back ever again, let’s see you judge me then.

 

At the time, scavenging for all the pieces to the Plague Dogs’ puzzle hadn’t felt remotely taxing, physically or emotionally. He could latch on to a lead and simply ride the slipstream from there. A witness but not complicit. Easy enough to try and outrun his brain...

 

Could leave. So many journalists have ‘disappeared’. Who’s to question another? Just across the sea, there’s a blinding place for nightlife, a binding place to be drowned, easy. Time to listen to your mind, one day. Write a song for someone. Some effort. For anyone.

 

_She just hates the dog. That’s all we need. Anyone who comes asking around will get a nasty shock. Not such a tale of tragedy and woe so much as one spiteful old cow whose face needs fixing with a--_

 

“Digby.” Wood had such a kindly voice. “You are a guest in my home. Won’t you finish your drink?”

 

**_It’s hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead_ **

 

**_Under a sky so blue_ **

 

**_You have to stop the blood to your head_ **

 

**_To fit the breath in front of you_ **

 

Oh, yes, Heercums Annie Mossity. Quite hard to think about, really, she was. A real control freak of a woman who had been getting her way by assertion for far too long. No man in the house to think for her to fight off her lies, her antic slander: she was no Bertha Mason. Some folks are born but hateful.

 

Having done this time, not much thinking in sight, here’s this for the reader’s appetite:

 

The more times Mr. Wood let those awful words past his lips, the deeper rang the venomous tang. One talks, one thinks. Driver (acclaimed arsehole; had once gone on record as stating that the higher-ups of our honoured District had as much a chance of securing a stable society as a well-qualified youth had of catching the scent of cow shit curling off their boots) had done quite enough thinking for one lifetime.

 

FROM INTREPID TO TEPID, _reads the headline. I’m the miracle worker. I use what the world gives me and what the world wants._ J'aime faire des croquettes au chien. _Treats for dogs and dogs for treats._ _I need my damn fix as much as we all do. We KNOW we do._ _I used you and I used your dogs. I’m the bad guy. I know. Quit your leading me on._

 

He couldn’t stop glancing at those cursed dogs. _These Hounds of the Baskervilles lead the fearful public eye after their eerie antics. Could we always have been dealing with an ancient evil? Were the wounds of weary brains re-opened long ago by their fangs? Or could the enemy lie among us in a more familiar form? Our very own Digby Driver shall spin you a tale, a tale that shall give an ill taste to that froth in your mug. Instead sink your teeth into--_

 

Driver’s jaw was beginning to ache. All these years of smiling on cue and he never suffered any less.

 

His name was on the article, at least. Time for another set of steps to sound around the house, maybe.

 

Yes, that could work. Someone who’d argue against him rather than rolling over and showing their belly like Wood did. A ladyfriend might help. Or a dog, even. Any form of company in his life that wasn’t that vanished man.

 

In regards to his first encounter with Ann, who had in part reminded him of a slab of concrete and in another of some slight coyote--slinks less like a jackal, fools more than a fox, more lone than a wolf, less naïve than a…

 

All his life, the message had been clear: don’t bother. So why go off testing the boundaries now?

 

**_It’s hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead_ **

 

**_Under a sky so blue_ **

 

**_You have to stop the blood to your head_ **

 

**_To fit the breath in front of you_ **

 

Thinking favourably of how he’d been able to bring even the Secretary of State to his knees, the journalist sighed. To take an arsehole to task never felt old. And fresh with a promise to help dear old Wood back on his feet, just in time to meet the fluctuant mental state of the public head-on? True English justice. The icing on the cake.

 

And all those folks were so very placid, didn’t want to lift a frail finger to help him...foul telchines on your doorstep? Not your problem. Fogging up the air in your front room with their heavy, panting breaths? No, sir. Their eyes glowing red? Enough to draw the hand of Old Scratch to take back his merry lot, yes? Time for a spot of tea. Hot Bottle Bill knows best, that’s why we appointed him. Form and function! No skill involved.

 

That Powell was quite the idiot. Who talks so openly about their work? And about hope? _I don’t see your daughter making the next sunrise, mate, honest. Trust me. I’m a journalist._ He’d have informed the Lake District of her sorry state before he’d hauled his sorry self halfway back to A. R. S. E. And if she did pull through, they’d only be happy for her, and not mad at him. Or they would be, and he’d just shrug off their sudden scorn and insults.

 

He’d spent long enough in this town watching them all rush by, _them,_ waiting for the world to drop the answer in his lap. Mr Wood was saying more words with his horrible voice, wasn’t he? Oh, an article? Just say the word, old boy, and the cavalry cometh among motley patchwork banners held high.

 

He’d been given the dogs so easily. Stirring up hysteria was old hat to dear Digby Driver by now, a rogue in a rut awash in rats--and the public mind his pipe. A deadly, ornate pipe with the loveliest tune…

 

(and damn straight was he out to get paid)

 

“Yes, I think a nice pleasant story would be a boon for all of us.”

 

“Couldn’t agree more. This shortbread…?”

 

“Oh, take what you like.”

 

**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

“Celebrated figure of speech, Digby Driver, got a shock today.”

 

“The reason?”

 

**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

“The actions of Skillicorn are to be commended in the advent of Kevin Gumm, unanointed laughing-stock extraordinaire, who intends to head a hunt of Laelaps with the Teumessian Fox and Reynardus at his side. Every dog has her day and this bitch is bound for out back. Skillicorn, interviewed at a proximity of 50 centimeters from the gun barrel--”

 

**_To be red-tendoned dogs_ **

 

“I’m doing my damn _job,_ Quilliam.”

 

“And so am I. For the good of the public! Plus some quick change.”

 

**_To be dead center of a curious crowd…_ **

 

“You know, every time I look at you, I’m enlightened. I’m reminded of all the bad in the world.”

 

Whoever had said the words had said all that was needed. Too much went by in the silence.

 

Running his tongue over his teeth, licking his lips, Digby Driver thought of just what to say. He felt the weathered porcelain of the cup in his hands, so ornate and vulnerable.

 

He raised the cup. He took a sip. The tea had gone lukewarm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> local snake is hissstory.

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr, cyan chevrotain: two hounds and two humans hallucinate.
> 
> I saw fit to dedicate my first extensive work to my favourite book ever made...dialed up the song. My proceeding thoughts were ‘two dogs?? A CONNECTION’. My succeeding thoughts were ‘wow, look at that pretentious pile. Those are some words. I wanna slap that on some fanfiction.’ Looking back on this, not the best impression of what most of my future works will be about. Irregardless...yay! Out three days after three days after my birthday.
> 
> So, a few re-listens of the song, re-reads of the book a couple times more, dog-eared (heh) pages and dots connected from there, here we are and here this is. Future stories might involve a little more planning. Or less. I can’t tell.
> 
> I’ll take this opportunity to plug cLOUDDEAD and The Plague Dogs simultaneously. The book’s great IMO, my favourite of all time. And I think cLOUDDEAD and their members are excellent, a stupendous example of (apparently) entirely meaningless and surreal lyrics, and you should go listen to their released sets. Alllll three of them.


End file.
